Race, Climate, Headlines

Last updated on: August 16, 2019 at 1:11 pm by D. G. Hart

Race, Climate, Headlines 2019-08-16T13:11:01-04:00 D. G. Hart

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Even as the New York Times is launching coverage of slavery’s influence on North American colonies and the United States, only three weeks ago Scott Simon, the presenter on NPR’s Weekend Edition (morning) was arguing that reporters should make climate change the story to drive reporting:

It’s hot: historically, treacherously hot this week, in surprising places.

It was 109 degrees in Paris, the highest temperature ever recorded there. People plunged into the Jardins du Trocadéro fountains to cool down, while officials worried some of the charred walls of Notre Dame Cathedral that didn’t fall in April’s fire might now dry out and collapse in the furnace of summer heat.

Scorching new records were also set in Belgium, the Netherlands, Britain and Germany, where the Richard Wagner Festival opened in Bayreuth in the un-air-conditioned swelter of a 19th-century opera house.

If there’s anything more intimidating than a 3 ½-hour German opera, it’s sitting through it in 100-degree heat.

Northern Europe is not Dallas or Miami. The great cities on the continent have not been built to function in the kind of heat and humidity that has struck there in recent years.

More than 70,000 people died in the 2003 European heat wave. At least 650 more people died during extreme summer heat in the United Kingdom last year. The hottest summers in Europe for the past 500 years have all occurred in just the past 17 years. What do all those new heat records show if not that the climate is changing?

The heat is especially dangerous for young children and older people, and onerous for everyone. Bob Ward of Britain’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment says scientists should name heat waves, as they do hurricanes, because they’re public health emergencies.

Thousands of miles from Europe’s summer heat, the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service has followed more than 100 wildfires that have erupted in the Arctic since June. Scientists say the number of wildfires in Siberia, Greenland and Alaska is “unprecedented.” And the cinders from those fires drift down on ice and snow, which then absorb sunlight, causing even more warming in the Arctic.

Our Earth is in the middle of what may be the hottest summer on record. We’ve already lived through the hottest June. This may turn out to be the hottest July.

A number of years from now, how many other important news stories we speak about this week will be as urgent as the temperature of our planet?

It turns out that climate change cannot stand up to race, white supremacy, guns, and white nationalism.

But if you thought very hard about the prognostications about climate change, you might conclude that the changes in the earth’s temperatures are going to kill more people than white nationalists.

So I wonder whether the concerns about racism — and race is indeed a terrible blight on U.S. history and character — is a distraction from a threat that will affect everyone in the United States and even everyone on the planet. Could it be that anti-racism is its own kind of nationalism and that climate change is the true cause for those opposed to nationalism and committed to global harmony and peace?

Only three weeks ago, Scott Simon seemed to think so.

Image

Civil Religion

climate change

National Public Radio

Previous Post

August 15, 2019

What Hath the Great Commission To Do with Renaissance Humanism?

Next Post

August 20, 2019 Religion that Helps Cities and Hurts Churches

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 2016 Presidential Election 2020 Presidential Election Apocalypse Bible in American Life Biblical authority Books and culture Calvinism Church Life Civil Religion Culture Wars Doctrine evangelicalism Gullibility Heaven and Hell Intellectual life Jesus Ministry modernity moralism Nationalism New Testament Old Testament Otherworldiness Otherworldliness Paul Peter Piety Popular culture Protestantism Psalms Puritans Race Roman Catholicism sacred/secular distinction Sex Shameless Self Promotion Sports Ten Commandments U.S. politics Uncategorized vulgarity worship

Select a Month January 2022 October 2021 August 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz